Deu 20:1, The priest's exhortation to encourage the people to battle; Deu 20:5, The officers' proclamation of who are to be dismissed from the war; Deu 20:10, How to use the cities that accept or refuse the proclamation of peace; Deu 20:16, What cities must be devoted; Deu 20:19, Trees of man's meat must not be destroyed in the siege.

betrothed a wife: It was customary among the Jews to contract matrimony, espouse, or betroth, and for a considerable time to leave the parties in the houses of the respective parents; and when the bridegroom had made proper preparations, then the bride was brought home to his house, and the marriage consummated. The provisions in this verse refer to a case of this kind; though the Jews extend it to him who had newly consummated his marriage, and even to him who had married his brother's wife. It was deemed a peculiar hardship for a person to be obliged to go to battle, who had left a house unfinished, newly purchased land half tilled, or a wife with whom he had just contracted marriage. Deu 22:23-25, Deu 24:5; Mat 1:18

for the tree: etc. or, for, O man, the tree of the field is to be employed in the siege, The original is exceedingly difficult. The LXX has it, "Is the tree in the field a man, to enter the trench before thee?" The Latin Vulgate: "For it is a tree, and not a man, neither can it increase the number of those who war against thee;" Onkelos, "For the tree of the field is not as a man, that it should come against thee in the siege;" and to the same purpose the Arabic, Philo, and Josephus who say, "If trees could speak, they would cry out, that it is unjust that they, who were no cause of the war, should suffer the miseries of it." However rendered, the sense is sufficiently clear, and it is a merciful provision to spare all the fruit trees for the support of both the besieged and besiegers. Deu 26:6